Canter Crossing Official

Official blog for the development of Canter Crossing. © Pixel Horizon Games.

[cantercrossingofficial]

Canter Crossing is an isometric equestrian RPG game with a colourful world and hand-drawn animations. It is family friendly, with sandbox elements and multiple ways to earn gold and progress.

♦ System: Windows ♦ Platform: Steam ♦ Release: TBD ♦ Genre: Adventure, RPG, Sim, single-player

GAME SCOPE - What is achievable?

While we do have scope for more, these are the things that are already in the game, and are in the works to be implemented upon a full release of the game.

2D hand-drawn animated horses. 8 direction movement.

Several biomes with nice looking environments. Unlock areas as you play and level up.

Jumping. This will include natural obstacles & cross country style jumps with some (horse-realistic) platforming.

An 8 horse barn for viewing horses and checking their info.

Upgradeable pasture for holding extra horses. (max number of horses to be confirmed later)

Custom player, Farm and horse names, as well as a random horse name generator.

Player levels and trainable horse stats.

Collectables hidden throughout the game.

Gathering and crafting food.

Solid colour horse coats, ie chestnut, black, liver, grey, etc.

Basic breeding system.

Checkpoint, against the clock races.

A non-customisable androgynous rider.

NPC characters to talk to who unlock areas or rewards.

Simple custom tack colour changes. Tack is aesthetic and doesn't alter stats.

Catching wild horses. Sell them, or keep if you have room on your farm.

In game shop for buying tack and items.

No necessary, repetitive mucking or grooming… yay! Pay your groom daily.

A short storyline.

[cantercrossingofficial]

Swim animations have been revised and completed, bringing the total frames of animation (patterns included) to nearly 2250! With each frame taking anywhere between 10 minutes to half an hour, depending on complexity, it's been more that 6 months of solid work. We could have stopped at 4 directions. We could have just done a side scroller. Heck, it was nearly a top-down game! But we were more ambitious than that and I'm so proud of the result. We can't wait to show you all our hard work soon <3 Everything has now been exported into individual images (which also took longer than expected), so my next task is to get the rest of the tiles finished for the biomes, and then environmental assets.

[cantercrossingofficial]

Blue eyed beauties… delicate dapples… striking socks… terrific tobianos… delightful duns… splendid spots, and beautiful blazes! Patterns on all the animations are FINALLY finished! I'm so excited to be over that hurdle and onto the part where we actually get the horses in game and bring them to life in full colour. Watch this space!

[cantercrossingofficial]

Here's a couple of teasers... Currently I'm pushing hard to get the pattern animations wrapped up. This has involved lining up the patterns to every frame of animation so it's taking time. Front socks are done. Hind socks are done. All patterns on the walk cycle are complete. Once they're all done, we can finally get them into the game! We've updated the "blocks" so they are more distinguishable from each other and give a better sense of depth while remaining seamless. We have also:

Corrected how everything appears in front of, and behind each other and bug fixed some visual glitches

Played with shadows and a possible day/night mechanic

Started work on the tack layers

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Take a look at the process for our new "box art"! You can download if for free at our Ko-Fi page to use as phone wallpaper HERE.

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For the last few months, I've been finishing up the animations; namely adding the manes and tails (they have to be done separate from the body), and finalising the jump animations. With only four sets of animations to go, I'm finally seeing a light at the end of the tunnel. With 480 frames for the body animations, and the hair animations, it has been a LONG journey. Of course, there's still the rider to do, but we're finally reaching a milestone for the game's development. On the programming side of things, we have interactable characters with working shops and currency, the horse capturing mechanics have been tightened up, and the gameplay for that is feeling very solid now.

[craigslisthorses]

i know next to nothing about actual horses,i lowkey followed this blog to help with drawing them so i don’t fuck it up real good

i wish video game developers would do the same

[cantercrossingofficial]

Working on it.

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[cantercrossingofficial]

We've been full steam ahead, here at Pixel Horizon Games, for the last few months! Origins is now really starting to take shape into a workable game which is very exciting! So far we have:

Working prototype for horse capture

Refined jumping, platforming, ramps and interactive objects for realistic physics while keeping gameplay fun and smooth

Started on collectables and gathering

Simple inventory and pause menu

Culling for optimisation

Prototype fast travel

Minimap and world map

Basic start menu and short cut scene at the start of the game with a soundtrack to set the mood

A huge array of food icons

Started work on the 8 diretion rider/player in game

Started the mane and tail animations for all directions and gaits (RIP my hand)

Full body artwork of the four main characters in the story, completed

Settled on a style for the environment and props, which is also now underway

All maps for the game drafted

And more...!

Honestly, we'd love to show you everything but right now, we'll be keeping a tight rein on sharing too much until we're closer to the finish line. Rest assured, however, that things are really coming together now and we're very excited for the future of this little game <3

[cantercrossingofficial]

Announcing our latest project; Canter Crossing Origins! Origins is a prequel, and a scaled back version of what we hope to achieve with Canter Crossing. It will be a shorter, cozy game to help us create a foundation for CC, with a focus on rescuing wild horses, gathering resources, and of course exploring Origin Isle. A new cast of characters, who we will introduce soon, will guide you through the story. Scaling down with Origins means we can release a game much sooner, figure out what works well for CC, and help to fund future development. 

CC is still very much on the horizon, but as a passion project, I want it to be as close to perfect as possible when it finally releases. Origins will pave the way for that, allowing us to walk before we run. We thank everyone for their interest in our games and ongoing support; you're all amazing and keep us motivated when things look rough, and we can't wait to show you more, closer to the time.

[cantercrossingofficial]

Announcing our new crossover game, Canter Strike, the Cosmic Crossing!

Gallop across the galaxy, wiping out hostile alien life and building unbreakable bonds with all your favourite crew from Canter Crossing. See Tralee, space cowboy extraordinaire, as you've never seen him before. Buy laser boosting veggies from Rocky, and stop by Nell's shop to kit out your horses with the latest in celestial fashion. Help Kel recruit and train new horses for your fleet, and get on Jazz's good side to gain an edge with black market gadgets. Of course, May will be there every step of the way, as your helpful co-pilot, keeping your fleet of horses in tip top shape for fighting the booger scourge.

Jump for the moon, ride for the stars. The fate of humanity, and horses, is in your hands!

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Place your votes now :P

[cantercrossingofficial]

The last thing I worked on for the game was this coat creator, using real genes. I was overjoyed with how it came out <3 Currently, we're in the process of selling and moving house, so we haven't been able to work on our games at all for several months. We do have some exciting plans in the pipeline, but we can't tell you any more than that for now! Fingers crossed we'll be on the move soon, so we can share our latest news with you all.

[cantercrossingofficial]

A PC wallpaper, that you can download at our Ko-Fi! https://ko-fi.com/cantercrossing/shop This wallpaper cost just £1, and will help to fund Canter Crossing's development.

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A FREE phone wallpaper, that you can download at our Ko-Fi! https://ko-fi.com/cantercrossing/shop

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Some Seroh horse lore and a realistic rendition of the horses.

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Foals! Just art for now, but one day they'll be added to the game.